By Dr. Peregrino
Brimah
Many of us have been
inspired by the speech given by a former Minister, and co-founder of
Transparency International, Ms Obiageli (Oby) Ezekwesili a.k.a. “Madam due
process,” at the APC summit which held in Abuja, March 6th, 2014. I will put my
full support behind her or any candidate like her for the Presidency of Nigeria
in 2015. A particular line reverberates in my mind. In “The Uncomfortable
Truth…,” she quoted George Orwell who said, “In a time of deceit telling the
truth is a revolutionary act”. Indeed, the truth sets you free. I hope we can
all be revolutionists in this sense. I hope we can all be brave enough to speak
the truth whether we fear that we stand to be negatively impacted by so doing.
To summarily explain
the perhaps controversial heading of this piece; I categorically assert that as
long as Nigeria is a single nation, and as long as life, the most valuable
resource, of one part belongs to all, all other resource belongs to all. This
is part of what ‘nation’ means. Bayelsa oil belongs to Jigawa (too) because
Jigawa blood is spilled in Bayelsa. Saying, “It is my oil” is treasonable until
and unless Nigeria splits up.
If Nigerian youth
from Jigawa can be a part of the nation’s army and be drafted to fight and die
in the creeks of the Niger Delta. If Nigerians from Bayelsa can be a part of
the nation’s army and be drafted to go and die in the deserts of Borno, then
all that is in and from the soil of each of these parts belongs equally to all
these youth. The gold of Zamfara belongs to all; so also the oil of Rivers
belongs to all.
The most valuable
resource of any nation is its human capital. As long as Nigeria remains a
nation, and its government and security services are constituted of peoples of
all parts called to make the ultimate sacrifice of fighting for and dying for
the nation and regions within the nation, all other less valuable resources
should belong to all the people. It is treacherous and evil to propose that the
national army can die to protect your region, but that its members do not have
rights to the life supporting resources in same regions; treasonably wrong and
evil.
A truth encountered
is that many of those who profess extreme ethnic feeling or tribalism and fight
the loudest for "regionalism" and resource ownership are the first to
throw away their “tribe” when they travel abroad. These are the ones you see in
America who tell their kids not to speak “language,” because they want them
Americanized and not to have “accent.” The same with some who go to Arabia and
suddenly become more “Arab” than Arabians themselves. We know much of this is
due to poverty, desperation and is sheer hypocrisy, however unless an opening
for true conciliation is made, things will only keep getting worse. There is a
fundamental problem that must be addressed.
More Nigerian troops
and security officers have died in the north and the creeks in the last five
years under the current administration than any similar period since the civil
war. We read of troops ambushed and slaughtered in the creeks and these are
young men from all over Nigeria. Likewise we have read of police men ambushed
and killed by Ombatse and soldiers and police slaughtered by Boko Haram. Do we
in our individual regions deny these men of our resource while we employ them
to die for us in our or ‘foreign’ regions?
Those who read my
thoughts know full well that I as an individual am interested and a staunch
proponent of regionalism with the possibility of more elaborate disintegration
if the people so desire. Whatever will rid the nation of its monstrous
corruption, lack of opportunity, the cabal grip on all sustenance and the
worsening insecurity and terrorism, is a go for me. The missing billions today
finances global terrorism. We urgently must get out of this state of anarchy
where no region is safe, not even the President’s own village. Some of us don’t
have millions of dollars to offer kidnappers.
Today the north of
Nigeria is one of the poorest places in the entire world. Poverty indices are
as high as 87% in some regions living below the poverty line. The candid truth
is that the average northerner benefits naught from the oil resource abundant
in the South. Compared to its northern neighbors, the north of Nigeria is so
much poorer. Nearby Mali and Chad have poverty levels in the fifties compared
to north Nigeria where poverty is in the eighties. In contrast, Southern states
have poverty levels as low as 20%. It has been only the cabal, north and south
who have benefited from the oil wealth of the nation. Regionalism will give
local leaders a responsibility to ensure the well-being of their people or risk
quick and swift rebellion and expulsion. Today, they hide under and blame
others and the ‘nation’ for their greed and failure to lift-up their
communities.
If Nigeria is to
remain as one nation, it should in my view have regions—erroneously dissolved
by Aguiyi Ironsi with Decree No. 34 of 1966—reinstituted. I also believe the
Parliamentary system of governance, also erroneously replaced with the
Presidential, during the Obasanjo first regime, should be brought back. The
parliamentary system works better for multi-ethnic nations, as can be seen in
similar India; and with this system, the entire 168 million citizens do not war
over who is to become President, and only focus on people they know and elect
as their local representatives who then select the President from among them in
the Parliament. This will not only save cost, but reduce ethnic tension and
political financed violence.
But as long as we are
one single nation, our lives are risked and sacrificed for each other and so
also must our resources be the property of one and all. Boko Haram terror is
sponsored by oil money. Why should the people of Bama suffer at the mercy of
terrorists being fed fat by the nation’s oil money, but not be re-built from
same oil money? Already the average northerner on the streets benefits
practically nothing from the oil wealth of the nation, other than what they pay
to buy of it at the pump at a price above the global mean.
If regionalism is
restored, the people of each region will constitute their own armies who will
die for them and the people of each region will be forced to support their own
economies, with the center not taking more than a few percent from each region,
and then to each will belong his resource.
What Jonathan Fails
To Deliver
You cannot be a
southerner honestly seeking a solution to the intractable problems the nation
faces and support this President. The President today is a new branch of the
old, dead tree. He loves Nigeria as is, which is a cracked pot and leaking
basket, leaking all the resource, both human and ecological into the bowls of
the same old cabal. Nigeria as is, pays the looters and the looters alone.
Riding safe in their bulletproof cars and flying high in their comfortable
jets, this government and their friends laugh at us ‘mekunu,’ poor who suffer
in hunger and die from regional conflicts. It is hard for them to seriously
attend to the problems of Nigeria when they are blinded by billions of dollars
they are able to loot with the nation remaining embroiled in confusion and
ethnic tensions as it is. This is why they are never seen attempting to
seriously address the killings in the creeks, in the Middle Belt or in the
north. They love the distraction.
Unfortunately,
President Goodluck Jonathan is wasting our money and time once again with a
fake National conference. This is one more reason why some of us who are honest
and dare to be revolutionary by declaring the truth, have tired of him and look
forward to any new government that will secure the interests of the people,
provide opportunity and be brave enough to have a true national conference with
the “S” in it; the Sovereignty question open for discussion. We should not be
forced to suffer under this economic terrorism and to fight and die to protect
looting of resources. We the masses have no better option than to uphold truth
and work together as one block for now, to get a slightly morally competent
government that will respect us and give us the opportunities that are our
right; else we only succeed in depriving each other to the merriment of the
united cabal, who today own all of us and all the oil.
Dr. Peregrino Brimah
http://ENDS.ng [Every Nigerian Do Something]
Email: drbrimah@ends.ng Twitter: @EveryNigerian
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